Sunday, December 16, 2012

Speaking the unspeakable

'Unspeakable violence' is a well worn phrase, and, clearly, there is an extent to which certain violent acts prove to be difficult, if not impossible, to entirely put into words.

However, while never capable of complete expression, there are some moments when violence becomes, if you will, 'speakable': when words allow certain aspects of it to be driven home with a particular emotional intensity.

I found, today, in looking through various kinds of press coverage of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, that the two comments that made the horror of this particular incident of horrendous violence most speakable were not those deliberately aiming at the highest degree of pathos but rather those that seemed most matter of fact or spontaneous.

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